At a time in our nation’s life when we are talking about joy as a response to hate and despair, I returned to the first of a three-book trilogy of essays published by Haymarket and written by one of my favorite authors.

Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities (2016, originally published in 2004), by Rebecca Solnit begins with a discussion around the demands of hope. They are real, but she pivots to note that joy is an especially good way to support the work which hope demands. This political season—when reactionary politicians want us to believe that the joyfulness Kamala Harris exhibits in life makes her an “unserious candidate”—seems as good a time as any to consider Solnit’s thoughts on hope and joy in the face of despair, and to take the long view which she favors.

“Joy doesn’t betray but sustains activism.  And when you face a politics that aspires to make you fearful, alienated, and isolated, joy is a fine initial act of insurrection.”

Though initially written during the Iraq war of 2004, I thought of how much more her words apply during our politics of hatred and alienation as manifested by Donald Trump. Hope and joy are definitely needed in response.

Solnit begins the foreword to the third edition of this trilogy with the following observation:

“Your opponents would love you to believe that it’s hopeless, that you have no power, that there’s no reason to act, that you can’t win. Hope is a gift you don’t have to surrender, a power you don’t have to throw away. And though hope can be an act of defiance, defiance isn’t just enough reason to hope. But there are good reasons.”

Hope, as Solnit makes clear, is not naive optimism. Instead, it “locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act . . . Hope is an embrace of the unknown.” In twenty-one insightful essays, she touches on topics as wide-ranging as “False Hope and Easy Despair,” the “Indirectness of Direct Action,” and “Getting the Hell out of Paradise.”  This last one is a call to let go of perfection and to look instead to the possible.  And it contains this wonderful quote from Eduardo Galeano,

“Utopia is on the horizon.  When I walk two steps, it takes two steps back. I walk ten steps and it is ten steps further away. What is utopia for? It is for this, for walking.”

I’ve recently lived through a period with one individual whose suffering spreads to those around them. We also experienced an act of political vandalism when someone stole our “Angela Alsobrooks for Senate” sign, along with those of several of our neighbors. * As Solnit writes in another book of the trilogy, we are “all weird, all in this together.” She suggests “that addressing our own suffering while learning not to inflict it on others is part of the work we’re all here to do. So is love, which comes in so many forms and can be directed at so many things.”

This is a perspective we all need to grasp to live together successfully.  At a time when so many in our political world are trying to push us apart, this trilogy of almost two decades of writing—which I originally reviewed in 2017 under the title Joy is a fine initial act of insurrection—is worth our time.

“Rejoice in possibility and keep lifting one another up,” as poet, songwriter, and singer Carrie Newcomer writes. “These are times of miracle and wonder.”

Let’s find joy. Let’s be the joy in America. Let’s vote, joyfully!

More to come . . .

DJB

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*Our next-door neighbor quickly went to the Alsobrooks headquarters (conveniently located one block from our house) and picked up two new signs, one for us. Ours is now safely ensconced in our window.

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Image by free photos from Pixabay.